June Horwitz Obituary (2007) - Kansas City, Missouri

June Horwitz passed away peacefully at home on August 19th in the presence of her family. She had battled pancreatic cancer for over a year. She was 84. Services will be held on Tuesday, August 21st at 12 noon at the Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka, located at 4200 Munson Avenue, Topeka, KS 66604, where they were members for fifty years. Funeral arrangements are being conducted by the Louis Memorial Chapel of Kansas City. A native of New York City, the family moved to Topeka, KS in 1951 for professional reasons and resided there for 50 years. The couple decided to move to Kansas City when the Menninger Clinic began its move to Houston, Texas. She was a serious ballet student as a teenager and began giving ballet lessons in Topeka shortly after her arrival there and continued doing so for about ten years. She was also active in civil rights activities and was a volunteer with the Kansas Commission on Civil Rights. She worked closely with the Jesuit community then located in St. Mary''s, KS.When her three children were becoming more independent, she enrolled as a part-time student at Washburn University. Part of her cirriculum consisted of counseling minority women who were on probation in the court system and this lead to her decision to major in criminal justice. After completing her Bachelor''s degree in 1978, she enrolled in the KU School of Social Work and completed her MSW in 1980. She then joined the staff of the Youth Center at Topeka, a residential facility for delinquent adolescent boys. In that position she introduced badly needed counseling activities, including a program with the Menninger Clinic for mental health trainees to offer therapy to those boys who desired that kind of help. In 1993, at the age of 70, she retired in order to spend more time with her three grandchildren and in travel with her husband. In particular, the couple enjoyed their long summer sojourns in Aspen, Colorado where the couple had a vacation home. For the next several years she enjoyed the leisure afforded by retirement as well as excellent health until May 2006 when the cancer was suddenly diagnosed. June was a proficient linguist and during her travels, enjoyed conversing with people in either French or Spanish. She enjoyed classical and light classical music and was particularly fond of the summer concert series offered by the Aspen Music Festival. She was an avid reader of biographies, especially of American presidents. June is survived by her husband Len, her three children, Marj Murray and husband Ragen, Lynne Green, and Robert Horwitz as well as three grand-children, Adam Green and his wife Cori, Sands Murray-Wassink, and Laura Murray. Her surviving siblings are Carole Goldstone and husband Gil, and Bette Smith and husband Lawrence. Contributions in her memory may be made to either Van Go Mobil Arts, 715 New Jersey St., Lawrence, KS 66044 or to the Kansas City Hospice, 9221 Ward Parkway, Suite 100, Kansas City, MO 64114. Van Go is a non-profit organization founded by daughter Lynne Green ten years ago as an after-school arts program for at risk teenagers in Lawrence.